Saab: Product-Driven Culture in Defense Industry

Product development is not just technical work, but also culture, courage, and the ability to change practices in a way that creates value for the long term. Saab Finland’s Product Development Path Makers 2025 award-winning work exemplifies how even in a traditional industry, more agile and product-driven development can be built.

Head of Engineering Jani Pelkonen says the award was important for the entire team, as it directly targeted the doers and reinforced the feeling that real things had been achieved at Saab: “It felt great and meaningful to receive such recognition, especially since it came from genuine work, not artificially constructed merits.”

According to him, the award primarily depicted a change in the business model and product development process: away from purely project-driven thinking toward an environment where top experts are given more freedom, responsibility, and space for new ideas.

A New Way to Do Product Development

In Saab’s Finnish organization, efforts have been made to describe and establish the created product development process so that the operating model can be more easily spread throughout the company. Pelkonen says the goal is to make the process visible and properly modeled by the end of this year.

“We are shifting our business idea away from the very traditional project-driven world toward a more product-driven and innovative environment.”

Pelkonen notes that the change is not easy, as large organizations often face entrenched practices and caution. Still, Saab Finland’s small and agile unit has been able to prove to the parent corporation that bolder product development can also be profitable.

Roots of the Thinking

According to Pelkonen, the current direction arose partly from good timing, luck, and the opportunity opened by the HX fighter campaign to build new expertise in Finland. When motivated top experts from various backgrounds came together, the idea emerged that Saab should also develop its own products instead of relying solely on customer projects.

“Many of our professionals want to do interesting things and change the world; a monthly salary alone is not sufficient motivation to work for a specific company.”

Pelkonen says experience from the Nokia and startup worlds also played a role: they taught both the requirements for world-class product development and how much can be achieved with a small team. This combination helped build Saab’s operating culture, blending startup spirit, strong expertise, and the resources of a large company.

Impact on the Company and Society

The work done at Saab Finland has, according to Pelkonen, served as a kind of testing ground for the entire company. The small Finnish unit has demonstrated that a new type of product development can generate business, scalability, and better profitability.

“We have been, in a good way, a test lab,” Pelkonen states.”

He sees the work impacting society more broadly: it has created jobs, offered students internships and thesis opportunities, and strengthened the development of the Tampere region into a technology and defense hub. According to Pelkonen, the most meaningful aspect is that through this work, something genuinely useful can be built for both the company and the surrounding ecosystem.

Insights for the PDPM Award

Jani Pelkonen would love to see diverse teams from various industries in this year’s PDPM applications, as innovations often arise precisely at interfaces. He particularly hopes for bold startups and scale-ups that dare to dive in and experiment with new solutions:

“It would be great to see highly diverse companies that emphasize risk-taking, boldness, and trust in one’s own idea!”